FEMALE SPEAKER: Hello, everyone.
Welcome, fellow Googlers, and guests.
I'm very excited today to introduce
an incredibly inspiring person, author, and speaker,
Joe Plumeri, who is here today to share
a bit about his new book, "The Power of Being Yourself-- A
Game Plan for Success by Putting Passion
into Your Work and Life."
Joe Plumeri is the former CEO of Willis Group, and Citibank
North America.
He now serves as the Vice Chairman of First Data
Corporation, and a member of its board of directors.
His passion, honesty, and sense of purpose
flows through the pages of his book, as well as his speeches.
So please join me in welcoming Joe Plumeri.
[APPLAUSE]
JOE PLUMERI: Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you all for coming.
I appreciate it very much.
First of all, I should tell you why I wrote this book.
I am not a writer.
I don't do that for a living.
But I have passion, and I have a point of view about things.
And a couple years ago, I started
to think about-- as you all do-- about life in general,
and how things are going.
And I said to myself, you know, it's interesting
how we all celebrate authenticity in this country.
We think authenticity is great.
We see people who are genuine, and we
say that person is really a real person.
And then we see everything's filtered today
through emails, texts, Instagrams, Twitters,
LinkedIns, and by the time you get through all of that stuff,
you wonder what's true, and what's false.
I see in companies, people send emails
because they don't want to be there when people are
reading it on the other end.
And I think about how unfamiliar we've become with each other.
I watch television, and I see people read off
of teleprompters.
And I ask myself, did they really write that?
Do they really feel that way about the subject,
or does somebody else feel that way?
I see people on television get choked up, and begin to cry.
And they apologize immediately for crying.
And I ask myself, why are they apologizing
for being themselves, and being genuine about who they are?
And I think about our society, and are we
being disconnected with how we really feel about things?
And so I wanted to write this book.
I had in my head to do it for all of those reasons.
And then a couple years ago, my son-- my now-oldest son
was running in the Boston Marathon.
And it was the day of the terrorist attack in Boston.
And you'll read about it in the book.
And it's really what motivated me
to write the book, when I saw people's emotions that day.
I saw them caring for each other.
I saw people helping each other.
I saw people terrorized.
And I said, why do we have to wait for an occasion?
Why do we have to wait for a wedding, a funeral,
or a catastrophe for people to really show who they are?
Why can't we be that way every day?
So what I did was to set about stories in the book
about being yourself, either my stories,
or other people's stories.
And I didn't do it by virtue of chapters.
I did it by virtue of principles, things
that I believed in.
So that when you read the book, it's
not something you put back on the shelf and say,
OK, I read that book.
But it's something that you could use every day.
And something that you could remind yourself all about.
And I tried to be-- and I know I was-- as transparent
as you possibly could be.
Because otherwise, the book would not have integrity.
I'm just going to talk to you about a few of the principles.
One of the principles is, we all got the same plumbing.
Now you're asking me, what is that all about?
What that's about is, is I've traveled
throughout the whole world.
And what I found out was, is that whether you're from Asia,
or whether you're from Indianapolis,
or whether you're from South America,
or wherever you're from, everybody
feels the same feeling that we all do.
And that if we understood that better,
maybe the world would be a little bit nicer, and more
peaceful.
Because I have traveled the world.
I was the CEO of a British company for 13 years.
And you would think when everybody
talks about the British and being stiff, and stiff
upper lip, and they don't laugh a lot,
they don't do all that kind of stuff.
I found the direct opposite of all of that.
But you hear that, and you begin to think that people really
don't understand what other people are all about.
When I got to this company-- it was called the Willis Group--
it didn't make very much money.
Didn't make any money at all.
So I had to do something to get everybody
engaged in the company.
And so what I did was-- and I didn't know this--
but I created these little pins that everybody
could wear with Willis on it.
And I thought that if everybody wore a pin
they'd become sort of like part of the company.
And everybody would start to feel a sense
of being a part of things.
And I didn't know the British don't like wearing pins.
Nobody told me that.
As a matter of fact, they're really disgusted with the pin.
But they knew that when I showed up,
if they didn't wear the pin, that I
would give them a hard time.
Which I never did.
I just stared at their lapels to see if they had a pin on.
So when people would walk down the hall,
I always knew that they didn't have a pin on,
because a woman would go in the men's room,
and a man would go in the women's room
so they wouldn't confront me.
And so one day-- and I knew that this happened in the company--
they felt that when they confronted me
they'd have to know what was going on.
They'd have to have a reason to not have their pin on.
So I get the one guy, and I look at his lapel,
I don't say anything to him.
And he says, "Oh, Mr. Chairman, I'm
sorry I don't have my pin on.
I left it on my pajamas."
When you think about that, and you
think about that kind of humor, you
wouldn't think that would come from what
your perception is of a Brit.
We dedicated a building in London a few years later.
Made the company successful.
Became a global company.
And I built a building in London right
across from Lloyd's of London.
So I have to dedicate the building, and they say to me,
"Who are you going to have to dedicate the building?"
I said, "Me.
I'm going to dedicate."
But apparently in London, you don't dedicate buildings
unless you have royalty in these buildings.
So a friend of mine says, I can get you some royalty.
I said, who could you get?
He picks up the phone, and he talks to Prince Andrew.
Now, I come from a neighborhood in Trenton, New Jersey.
I don't know royalty from Adam.
But he gets the prince to show up for the dedication.
Now in advance of the dedication,
I get a long list of things that you're not
supposed to do when you're around royalty.
One of them is, you don't touch royalty.
You just put your hands, and you don't touch them.
So I said, this makes me nervous, because I'm a toucher.
Like I did with all of you, I said hello when you came in.
It's just the way I am.
So I meet him outside the building.
And interestingly enough, he drives up
with his own Range Rover.
There's no entourage.
He just drives up by himself.
He gets out of the car.
So I feel more comfortable with him.
And it's going to be like three or four
hours before the two of us dedicate the building.
So I take him around and so forth.
And I said to him, I gotta tell you.
I'm a little bit nervous.
He said, what are you nervous about?
I said, I'm nervous because there's
this long list that says I'm not supposed to touch you.
So I want you to know in advance,
before I'm arrested, that I might touch you.
I'm sorry, I don't mean it.
So we dedicate the building.
And during the ceremony, I give a speech.
And during the speech, I read a note
from my mother, who was alive at the time.
And the note said something to the effect,
thank you to Prince Andrew for being nice to my son
Joey-- my mother's from Italy.
And she appreciates it very much.
And he's very honored, and he's very nervous.
So please take care of him.
Something along those lines.
So I read the note, everybody applauds.
I get a standing ovation.
And as I turn around, the prince is there,
and he gives me a hug.
And everybody's astounded that the prince is giving me a hug.
And I said to myself, again, isn't it interesting
when you have a perception that people don't
do those kinds of things, that really we're more alike
than anything else.
I've never gone around the world, any place--
because I'm pretty enthusiastic, as you see-- where I've
said to somebody, nice job, good job,
and they've said to me, stop telling me
I've done a nice job.
I'm tired of hearing that.
Or they said to me, you're too enthusiastic.
Don't be so enthusiastic.
We all got the same plumbing.
I've never heard anybody, any place in the world,
tell me otherwise.
So if you understand that as you're dealing with the world--
the message in that principle is that you're
dealing with the world.
We may look different.
We may talk different.
But at the end of the day, we've all got the same plumbing.
We all got the same insides.
We all got the same heart.
And it's really important that we
begin to get in touch with our heart,
even here, where it's the center of information.
Here at Google, there's one thing you can't do.
I google all day long.
I got a piece of information I want, I take my cell phone out,
and I google it.
But one thing that you can't do, and you ought to try it,
is try googling your heart.
Or try googling my heart.
And you'll get the lyrics of a song.
You'll get the way the heart is shaped.
And what I'm talking about is your feelings,
and how you express yourself, and how
you relate to each other.
Which is really, I think, important
in a society today that is lacking that.
And is lacking the risk-taking, and everything else
that you need to do.
So that is the first principle.
And it's really interesting stories.
And there are other stories about people who have
the same plumbing in the book.
Another principle I talk about, which is really interesting,
is make your heart your teleprompter.
Now you'll ask me, what's that about?
I go to speak at the Georgia Dome one year.
And usually when you go speak, they
want you to test the microphone, or to test whatever.
And the guy said, let's work on the teleprompter.
And I said, I don't use the teleprompter.
He said, well, what do you use?
I said, I brought my own teleprompter.
He said, nobody brings their own teleprompter.
What are you talking about?
I said, I brought my own.
He said, where is it?
I said, my teleprompter is right here.
It's my heart.
I speak from my heart.
I don't read from a speech.
I don't read from notes.
I speak from my heart.
And what I mean by that in that principle
is that today nobody takes any risks.
Nobody goes out and does anything
unless a poll was taken.
Nobody does anything unless a survey is taken.
Nobody does anything unless there's a consensus.
And then it's OK, and it's safe to do.
Instead of going out and actually doing
what's in your heart that you think is right.
And I tell a couple of stories in the book about that.
One of the stories I tell is in 2000,
when I became chairman and CEO of Willis.
The first thing you do when you become a CEO is you
look at all the things that happened in the company.
And the company wasn't doing well.
So I wanted to see everything that was going on.
So I looked at the benefits policy.
And the benefits policy did not include
benefits for domestic partners.
And I thought, that's not right.
I think benefits should be given to domestic partners.
I think everybody should be treated equally.
Now if you go back to 2000, that wasn't fashionable.
Nobody made me do it.
There was no polls and surveys, or rants
and raves about everybody being given equal rights domestically
in benefits in companies.
I just thought it was the right thing to do.
So I changed it without anybody asking me to do it.
Because in my heart, I thought it was the right thing to do.
In the company is a guy by name of Bryan Eure,
who is a broker at Willis.
And eventually he gets married to Bill White,
and they have a big wedding at the Four Seasons restaurant
in New York City.
I had no idea why this guy was at Willis until that night.
And he gets up to give the speech at his wedding.
There's 700 people there.
And he gets up to give his speech, and he says,
I want to thank Joe Plumeri, because without Joe
Plumeri being at Willis, I would never be here tonight,
or marrying Bill White.
It was right after New York changed the law
to be able to be married.
And he went on to say, when he was looking
for a job in New York City, he found that the only insurance
broker in New York that he could find
that gave benefits to domestic partners was the Willis Group.
And I want to thank Joe Plumeri for changing that benefit.
Or I wouldn't be here tonight.
Up until that night, I had no idea why the guy was at Willis.
And he announced that in front of 700 people.
That just moved me so much.
Because I said to myself, if I hadn't done what I thought
was right, he wouldn't be here.
He wouldn't be getting married, wouldn't be in New York City.
And I wonder how many people are holding back
from doing what is right and in their heart,
and being themselves, rather than waiting for a survey,
or conventional wisdom to tell them what to do.
You'll see in the book, there's a forward from a man
by the name of Joe Califano, who none of you have ever heard of.
But you notice these days that not many people smoke much
anymore.
If I ever told you that people wouldn't
smoke in pubs in Ireland, or places like that,
you'd be amazed.
Because that's what they do.
They were born doing that.
Well, who's Joe Califano?
He was the domestic adviser for Lyndon Johnson in the '60s.
And you might have read about the Great Society, which
is where Medicare and Medicaid come from.
So if you want to know where Medicaid and Medicare came
from, it was the Great Society that
was written by Joe Califano under Lyndon Johnson.
He was the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
under Jimmy Carter.
In 1978, he declared that smoking
be prohibited in federal buildings, and in airplanes.
And there were such an outcry that he
was fired by Jimmy Carter, because
of banning smoking in 1978 in federal buildings,
and airplanes.
And after he was fired, he dedicated himself.
Because the headline said that Joe Califano called
smoking slow-motion suicide.
So if you're wondering where the nonsmoking thing started.
When if you see television series
that go back to the '50s and '60s, and everybody smokes.
If you're asking yourself, where did it start?
Who started this whole thing with no smoking in buildings,
and here, and you can't do that, and you can't do this.
It was Joe Califano.
All because in his heart, even though he
knew he would be fired, he thought
it was the right thing to do.
How many people today, knowing that they're going to be fired,
do that?
People don't do that today.
They do what's politically correct today.
They know that I got to do what my boss tells me to do,
even though it's not the right thing to do,
or what society tells me to do.
But that's where the whole nonsmoking thing started.
So to me, he didn't need a teleprompter
to tell him what to say.
His heart told him what to say, even
though he knew he would be fired.
And the forward of this book is written by him.
And I am proud that that's the case.
There's another principle in the book
called, let sadness teach you.
Which is one that I share and want to share with you.
It's about my relationship with my son
Chris, who passed away six years ago because of drug addiction.
At 13 years old, he was anorexic,
as it turned out because of a self-esteem problem.
My relationship with him from the period
of 13 years old until when he died at the age of 40,
was obviously contentious, and one
where I tried very hard to rebuild my relationship
with him that hadn't been built before he was 13 years old.
And I tell as transparently, and as truthfully,
and in a raw way, what my relationship with him
was all about.
I did all of the conventional things that you should do.
Send him to hospitals, send him to therapists,
send him to every place that you can send people
to go to be rehabilitated.
But we never regained the kind of a relationship
that we should have.
Because I think as I was starting my meteoric rise,
if you will, to the top of the corporate world,
I wasn't the parent that I should have been.
The reality was, is that I neglected my own son,
even though I did the cosmetic things that you're
supposed to do to get him help.
Maybe, I say to myself, I should have taken a year off of work
rather than worry about the next board meeting.
And I tell that story.
Interestingly enough, I remember,
the company I was running was owned by American Express.
And he was arrested for credit card fraud
and went to jail for 18 months.
And I went to visit him every weekend.
But I could never seem to repair the damage that
had been done because of the neglect that had happened.
I tell that story.
And I tell that story not only to parents,
and I tell that story not only to children of parents--
it goes both ways.
Is that I think one of the most important things in life
are the relationships that you have.
Don't neglect them.
If you're a parent, the most important thing you have to do
is to make sure that you're close to your children.
When you see them, hug them, tell them that you love them.
If you're a child, and you're listening to me now,
and you're talking to your parent, hug them,
tell them that you love them.
Because at the end of the day, the last thing you want to do
is feel the regret of not having that relationship.
I talk about the pain of discipline,
and the pain of regret.
When you think about life, it really
gets down to those two things, doesn't it?
You either have the pain of discipline,
which is the short-term pain that you have
because you've got to do something.
But when you think about it, it doesn't last very long.
It's just short-term pain.
But the pain of regret, when you've ever felt regret,
lasts longer, and it just never goes away.
And it's those kinds of things in life
that I think are important.
And I think about my son.
And I think about the regret that I had with regard to that.
And it's something that never goes away.
And I think about it over, and over, and over again.
And the same thing relates to friendships that you have.
If there's somebody that you haven't
talked to in a long time.
Or somebody that you're meaning to call.
Where you're running something, yeah, I've
been meaning to call you.
I got to tell you, do it.
Before it's too late to do it, and you
regret not having done it.
By the way, that same reason, this whole idea of neglect
not only applies to children, and parents, friends,
but also applies to clients.
For people that are listening to me with regard to business,
the number one reason you lose a client is neglect.
You could make all the mistakes in the world that you want,
but the one mistake you can't make is neglect them.
Because they'll go someplace else where they feel
there's love.
It's a wonderful principle for you to read.
And when I say, let sadness teach you,
I tell it so other people don't go through the same thing I do.
And the last principle I'll talk to you about is called,
look up, not down.
We're all going to have adversity in life.
I was running Willis in 2008.
For those of you who remember, the world fell apart in 2008.
We had the Great Recession.
The banks were closed.
No credit.
Couldn't buy anything.
Terrible time to be around, frankly.
So in 2008, I made the decision to buy a company
for $2 billion, which is a lot of money
not only in 2008 but at any time.
It's supposed to close in October of that year.
The problem is, between June and October, the world fell apart.
So all the financing that I was supposed to get,
I got, but only for a short period of time.
Instead of it being permanent, it was temporary financing.
That's in October, and the deal closes.
In November, my son passes away.
So between October and November, I
don't know what worse could happen to me.
It's the time when I could-- two choices.
I could go dig a hole and jump in it.
Or I could get up in the morning and go attack my problems,
which I think you should do.
You should always attack your fears,
because your fears are your limitations.
If you don't overcome your fears,
you're going to be limited by them all your life.
And so I had to go attack them.
I talk about that.
It turns out that after I made this acquisition,
this other company, Hilb Rogal & Hobbs,
had five offices in Chicago.
And what I needed to do was to merge the five offices they had
and the two offices that I have so that they
could be more efficient.
We can grow one culture rather than
have all these offices spend more money,
and not have the same culture.
So I looked to see in Chicago where
there was a lot of buildings with that room,
with that space.
And the one place where they had a lot of space
was the famous Sears Tower in Chicago.
You all heard of the Sears Tower in Chicago?
Which is no longer called the Sears Tower in Chicago,
and I'll tell you that story.
Tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
Nothing like it.
The problem was, is that it was less than 70% occupied.
And the reason was is when the tenants' leases came up,
they were all afraid that the next terrorist attack was going
to be the Sears Tower, because it was the largest building
in the Western Hemisphere.
So as soon as the lease came up, they got out of there.
So there was a lot of empty space.
So I thought I had a great opportunity
to negotiate with the owner a good deal.
Because he had a lot of empty space.
The banks were not lending money.
The credit markets were closed.
What a great opportunity, that I could turn adversity
into something that's really terrific and positive.
So I meet with the owner, and I say to him,
I need 250,000 square feet-- which is, by the way, about 3%
of the building.
And he says, I have a lot of space.
I could do a good deal for you.
I knew I could.
And he says to me, so what would you like to pay?
I said, well, what's the average rent in the building?
He says, $35 a square foot.
So I said, I don't want to tell you what I pay.
I don't want to insult you.
He said, tell me what you want.
It's OK.
Tell me.
I said, no I don't want to insult you.
He said, no, tell me what you want.
I said, $10.
He says, you insult me.
So I got up to go away.
And he said, no, he says, let's do something.
I'm making a long story that's a wonderful story in the book.
We arrive at $14.50 a square foot.
Now for anybody who's in the real estate business,
or even renting, you know that $14.50 a square foot is like
nothing.
I mean, I don't know what it is a square foot here.
This is like hallowed ground, where I am now.
I mean, you're talking-- I'm serious-- 100s of dollars
a square foot.
This is $14.50 a square foot in the middle of Chicago,
the largest building in the Western Hemisphere,
$14.50 a square foot.
He says to me, do we have a deal now?
I said, not exactly.
He says, what do you want now?
I said, you know what the problem with this building is?
It's a jinx.
I says, it's a jinx, because the Sears name
connotes that a terrorist attack is going
to-- you need a positive name.
He says, what name should I put up there?
I said, Willis.
Nobody knew who Willis was.
They thought it was that little kid on television.
You know, what's up, Willis?
And he says, Willis?
Nobody knows Willis.
So I said, you put Willis up there,
I said, you'll get a new positive name rather than
the old Sears name on the building.
So he says, I got to think about it.
I don't know if I could do that.
Comes back the next day, he says, I could do it.
He says, but I gotta tell you, I gotta charge you.
Now we've been negotiating now for days.
He said blue, I said black.
He said white, I said green.
We never agreed on anything until he says that.
And I say to him, OK.
He's startled that I agree with him.
He says, you'll do it?
I said, absolutely.
He says, do we have a deal?
I said, not exactly.
He said, what do you want now?
I said, I'll give you a million dollars
if you give me a million dollars worth of business.
Because we're not your client, and you
need to insure the building.
So you give me a million dollars,
I'll give you a million dollars.
I says, you do that?
He says, if I do that, do we have a deal?
I said, not exactly.
He said, why not?
I said, your partners who are not my clients,
you've got to get them to give me the business.
So we finally decide on the deal.
And we rename the building the Willis Tower,
which is what it is today in Chicago.
I only took 3% of the building.
I don't own it.
I didn't own it.
I used to wear my pin, and people would say to me,
are you the guy that bought the Sears Tower?
And I said to myself, I got a long story and a short story.
The long story is too much to tell.
So I said, yeah.
Sure.
I bought it.
It's interesting, the night we dedicated the building,
Brian Williams-- the famous Brian Williams--
says to me, how after all these years it's been called Sears--
and by the way, Sears hadn't been in that building
since 1993.
How is it you show up and change the name?
I said, I asked.
Now, strange as that sounds, see what
it's all about is, you've got to wake up every morning
with a core belief.
Whatever you want to believe, you believe.
I believe anything's possible.
If you believe anything's possible, you're going to ask.
We live in a world where the possibilities are
less, and less, and less, rather than more, and more, and more.
And I tell you that story, and I want you remember it,
because don't be afraid to ask.
Don't be afraid to feel that anything is possible.
By the way, today, the Willis Tower in Chicago
is now almost 100% occupied.
Not because the economy came back.
But after Willis moved in and they changed the name,
United Airlines moved 2,200 people into the building.
And then six months to nine months later,
United Airlines and Continental Airlines
merged to become the largest airline in the world.
And where's their headquarters?
The Willis Tower in Chicago.
So after all that adversity, and after all
of that upset with the economy, my son,
you've got to be positive.
You've got to believe anything is possible.
And you have to face adversity, and face your fears.
And as you look at that tower, when you see it on TV--
and you will.
Or somebody mentions it-- and they will.
Just remember the story, anything's
possible you gotta ask.
And so the book, and I offer you those principles,
as just some idea of what's in there.
Some examples of what's in there.
Going to make you cry.
It'll make you laugh.
That's good.
That's what we're all about, is to cry, and to laugh,
and at the end the day feel better about life,
and feel better about yourself.
OK?
Thank you very much for listening, everybody.
I appreciate it.
[APPLAUSE]
JOE PLUMERI: Shall I do Q&A?
Anybody have any questions?
AUDIENCE: Hi, Joe, thanks for the talk, very inspiring.
JOE PLUMERI: Thanks for coming.
AUDIENCE: Yes.
I'd like to know how many books you have written,
and what inspired you to write about this book
and share with all of us?
JOE PLUMERI: As I said in the beginning,
I've always felt that, I think technology
is a wonderful thing.
And I'm standing in the center of the mecca of technology.
But I think technology should not be instead of people,
it should be on behalf of people.
And I think that we overuse our sense of connection
and information, and our communication with each other.
And our society has become more mechanical than it should be.
I don't write about it in the book, but maybe I should've.
But when I took over Citibank, I noticed that all people
did all day was email.
This was back in 1995.
So I shut the email system off.
And I don't know why I didn't write about it.
I shut the email system off, and they thought I was crazy.
Because I saw people weren't talking to each other.
And they were emailing each other
in the same floor, when they could be talking to each other,
and saying, hi, how you doing?
Because again, I go back to so many people
send things because they don't want to be there
when somebody reads it.
And they don't want to feel the emotion on the other side.
And I think that if you look at history,
and you look at what's moved this country, what's
moved the world, is people's emotions, their courage,
their sense of invention, their sense of creativity.
Look where I'm standing.
The creativity and the invention that took place here,
because people had the sense to take risks.
And I want people to sit around the dinner table
by virtue of this book and kind of reconnect to each other.
And that's why I tell these stories.
And if I could start that conversation and have people
start to communicate a little bit more
than we do now, and start the narrative with regard to that.
I got to tell you, you're looking
at a guy that cries a lot.
I don't mind telling you I cry a lot.
I've been the CEO of a lot of companies.
And nobody ever told me I was a weak guy.
Nobody ever told me that I cry, so therefore they
didn't think I was tough.
I was tough.
But that doesn't mean I can't show who I am.
And I think the more that we do that, the closer our society
becomes, and maybe there's less Fergusons in the world today.
So that's what inspired me to write this book.
Did that answer your question?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
Is that the only book that you have written?
JOE PLUMERI: Yes.
I'm not a writer.
I'm just an Italian kid from New Jersey.
I'm not a writer.
I don't do that for a living.
I just had the inspiration to want
to create the dialogue with people
about what's in their heart.
And hopefully more people will be inspired
to use their heart more.
I think that it's really important in our society.
AUDIENCE: So you've talked a lot about how you used your heart
as your teleprompter.
And I was wondering if you could comment
on your own personal preparation process?
Because obviously when you have an hour
to speak with all of us, there's some points
that you want to make.
But at the same time it's important to be
genuine in your delivery of it.
JOE PLUMERI: That's a great question.
Because you would have thought that I prepare.
As you can see, I'm just talking.
Friends of mine, my wife is in the back, they're laughing.
Because I've never read a speech in my life.
I never have.
Because I know the subject.
I know what I want to say.
There's eight principles in the book,
and I just picked a few that I thought you'd relate to.
And there's lots of others that are fun to talk about.
But the preparation is the intensity of my thinking.
I don't think you ever stop thinking
about what you're doing.
Lots of times my wife, Susan, who's here with me
today, she sees me staring into the abyss,
or staring at a wall.
And she says, what are you doing?
And she knows I'm processing in my mind what
I want to say to you guys.
But at the end of day, it starts here,
but it comes out over here.
So the filter is not a big one.
But if you feel it inside of you, and it's what you are,
and who you are, then the integrity shines through.
You can tell whether I'm a fake or not
by virtue of the way I do it.
So that's the way I process it.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
JOE PLUMERI: OK?
AUDIENCE: So much of our schooling
is focused on mathematics, and that sort of preparation
for the business world.
Do you think it's important to instill
this relationship-building and other things in kids early on?
And if so, what is the appropriate mechanism to do so?
JOE PLUMERI: Thank you, Angela, that's a very good question.
In my day, they called that liberal arts,
versus the sciences.
I think it's really important.
I think not only when you're a child.
And today the sense of competitiveness,
a sense of striving.
Browning said, your reach should exceed your grasp,
or what's a heaven for?
And we seem to be breeding in a society today
a class of children, or people, where average is good.
I don't think that's good.
I don't think the people who founded this place sought
to be average.
I think they sought to be different, and extraordinary.
So I think as kids are in school,
it's really important to instill in them a sense of who they
are, allow them to speak the way they think they should speak,
and what they feel.
When you go to business schools today,
and I speak at business schools, there's
very little taught about what it really takes to run a company.
You got to know about balance sheets,
and you've got to know about income statements, and taxes,
and all that kind of stuff.
But I really think what's important is inspiring people.
And they don't teach inspiration.
They don't teach motivation.
There's a principle in the book, show the way
to grandma's house.
And grandma's house is a metaphor for vision.
That as a child you went on a trip with your parents
someplace for a long distance.
And eventually, you got impatient.
And eventually you asked, when are we going to get there?
Everybody goes through it.
And the parent usually responds by making up
something that gives you a vision of how exciting it's
going to be when you get there, if you'd just
be patient, and settle down.
So in a way, that's a vision for the future.
Companies should do that for employees.
People like me should get up and say, let
me tell you where we're going.
Let me tell you my view of grandma's house.
This is where we're going.
And it's going to have cake, and ice cream, and candy, and toys,
and all the things that are nice.
Or put that in terms of business.
And the reason that's important is
so you could endure the trip.
Why do you show up every day?
What's your participation, or contribution
for what you do to make the place better,
to get to grandma's house?
And I don't think they teach that anymore in school.
People just show up.
And you get paid, hopefully well.
But there's no sense of really what
do I have to do with what happens when we get there?
So I am a big proponent.
I've said that business schools, I've said that at universities.
I think we need to do more and more to instill
that in our children.
Frankly, I have a granddaughter who's 13 years old.
And there's a lot of conversation
that goes on with a machine, and very little
that goes on with the talking.
And so when you sit down and you have dinner,
and there's no machine, it's very difficult
to converse when you're not used to doing that.
Because you could say a whole bunch of things.
And somebody says a whole bunch of things back.
And believe me, I am not anti-technology.
I just don't think it should be instead of people.
That's all.
And I think we need to reinstill that back into our society.
AUDIENCE: Joe, thanks so much for joining.
Your thoughts, sharing them has been great to hear.
The optimism, and dynamism heard from your story,
from what you shared.
So my one question was, I wonder if there's maybe
a certain point, kind of a specific time, or place,
or an experience where it all kind of clicked for you.
And you felt that having the optimistic path to life
is the way to go, as opposed to maybe being
a little more realistic, or being a bit more
pessimistic about things.
Or maybe you were always like that?
JOE PLUMERI: You're asking me a very good question, which
makes me think whether there was any defining moment, which is
what I think you're asking me.
And I don't think I had a defining moment.
I had a defining father.
This guy thought that nothing could ever go wrong.
When you're hanging around role models
like that that are positive, it's really infectious.
And he just never believed-- it's in the book,
by the way-- that's why I can't tell you the whole book,
then you won't read it.
But it's in the book how positive he was.
But I'll tell you a story, and it talks about what he did.
And when you read that, you'll see where it comes from.
Because all my life, I watched him.
And I watched him engage with people.
And I watched him be optimistic.
And I watched him just be such an influence just
by hanging around him.
So there was no defining moment for me.
But there was just like a whole bunch of time
that I saw him be positive.
There's a piece in the book where he used to come and watch
all my ball games.
I played sports.
And one of the stories I didn't tell in the book,
so I'm going to tell you.
And the guy who helped me write the book,
Steve Kettmann's in the back.
And I think of all these things now.
I played football in college.
And you can tell how good I was.
And how good the team was.
We went to play the University of Virginia.
And they had lost 27 games in a row, or something like that.
And if we beat them, they would have set the NCAA record
for consecutive losses or something.
And so we went to Charlottesville to play them.
And I had such a terrible day.
I fumbled.
It was just everything wrong.
And they won because of me.
And so I get in the locker room, and my head was down.
And I saw these shoes show up in front of me.
And it was my father's shoes.
And he said, why's your head down?
And I looked up, I said, I didn't play well-- or something
like that.
And he said, what do mean?
You had a great day.
I said, what are you talking about?
He says, 40,000 people now know who you are.
When you have that kind of influence-- and you'll
see that we owned the baseball team.
And I remember one time-- and again, I
didn't put it in the book.
Our team, it was a minor league affiliate of the Yankees.
I don't know, we lost 16 to nothing.
And he'd always go into the clubhouse
after the end of each game.
And he would say, great game.
Great game.
We lost 16 to nothing.
And the coach would say, how could you
say we had a great game?
He'd say, Oh, everybody tried hard.
Everybody did the best they could.
That was the kind of guy he was.
So when you hang around that all your life,
which goes to another message.
Hang around people that are positive influences.
Stay close to people who can be helpful to you,
and not drag you down, but pick you up.
You got those choices.
And I think that's where I got mine from.
AUDIENCE: So it sounds like it's almost kind of this tendency
to resilience, which maybe you cultivated just
from seeing your dad, and going through that.
JOE PLUMERI: Yeah, and again, I think
you are a product of something.
And I was a product of what I saw.
And I was lucky enough-- I could have
seen something else that would've
been not as productive.
But I had the privilege, and the good fortune
of seeing somebody that had a positive influence.
The guy just wouldn't give up.
He just kept bouncing back up again.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
JOE PLUMERI: Yeah, and so that's why I think it's important.
And there are subtle messages.
And you'll see, cut a path is the principle in the book which
talks about my father and my grandfather,
and the legacy in my family of always cutting a path.
There's choices you have in life.
I gave you one of them, pain of discipline, pain of regret.
The other one is, cut a path and leave a trail.
Or let somebody else cut the path, and you follow them.
In business, first to the market wins.
In life, I think you just go cut a path,
and then wait for everybody else to want to follow you.
They're not the ones that are the winners.
This place is a great example of that.
So he was always a person that cut a path, and left a trail.
And I've always been the same way.
And in business, it's called be the first to the market,
and you win.
Same thing with your customers.
If you have a customer, you don't sell them, you help them.
It's subtle things like that make
you feel and want people to do better, and they're positive.
AUDIENCE: So my question is, you mentioned
that you kind of regret not having spent more time
with your son before he passed.
After he did pass away, did you see
a change in kind of the amount of time
you spent with either family, or time you took off,
or in terms of how much you worked
as a learning out of that?
And then what kind of things you recommend for people these days
to kind of--
JOE PLUMERI: The answer is yes.
I have.
And frankly, when I was on a plane last night,
I asked my wife.
He had a daughter, who's now 13, who my ex-wife and I adopted.
And her name is Elizabeth.
And so I'm the father, and the grandfather.
And I worry that I don't spend enough time with her.
I mentioned that to my wife last night.
I said, I gotta spend more time with Elizabeth.
I don't know that I could even ask that question
before the tragedy.
I wouldn't have even asked it.
I think I'm pretty close to my other children,
but I get paranoid that I'm not.
Because when you go through something like that,
you're constantly questioning whether you're
doing the right thing or not.
Whether you said the right thing or not.
But I think it's healthy.
I think it's healthy that I constantly question,
am I doing this right?
Or I constantly question, am I spending enough time
like I should?
All because of the experience that I had.
And as long as I keep questioning myself,
I think that's healthy.
So my recommendation would be, don't
go through what I went through.
But keep questioning everything that you do personally
with your friends, or with your family.
And question whether or not the relationship
is as tight as it should be, and as heartfelt as it should be.
AUDIENCE: Just really quickly, on the subject
of questioning yourself.
How do you balance questioning yourself versus confidence?
JOE PLUMERI: Questioning yourself versus confidence?
I go back to swagger.
You know the word swagger?
Everybody always says, that guy's got swagger.
That lady has swagger, right?
And there's something cool about swagger.
And so I always try to think about what swagger
would be if you defined it.
And this is what swagger is.
You ready?
North of confident, and south of arrogant.
You've got it?
You want to be around confident people,
but you don't want to be around people that are arrogant.
Right?
You want to be around, this is a confident person
who has a sense of class, style, and has respect for people.
And so you want to stay south of arrogant, north of confident,
and that land right there is where you want to be.
And that's swagger.
And always keep asking yourself, did I
do something that was confident?
Or did I go above the line of arrogance?
OK?
Got it?
North of confident, south of arrogant
is the swagger you want to have every day, when
you think anything's possible.
OK?
I want to really thank you guys for coming today.
It's really been a lot of fun.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk to you,
and spend the time with you.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]